Wireless network technology is maturing, and base stations, which receive, buffer, and transmit data between a wireless network and a fixed network, are increasingly being installed in offices, homes and public places such as coffee shops, restaurants and airports.
With traditional wireless technology, only devices that are within range of a base station can send data to, and receive data from, the fixed network. Given the potential demand for wireless connections—in terms of volume and location—there has been significant motivation to develop capabilities that effectively extend the range of the base station.
One known approach creates a path between out-of-range devices and the base station by setting up peer-to-peer communications between wireless devices in the path. In this scenario, the wireless devices in the path essentially act as relays between the out-of-range device and the base station. For more information, the reader is referred to documents prepared by the mobile ad-hoc networking group (MANET), which is a working group within the Institute of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), and can be contacted via IETF Secretariat, c/o Corporation for National Research Initiatives, 1895 Preston White Drive, Suite 100, Reston, Va. 20191-5434, USA. An example of such documents can be found at the following http URL address: www.ietf.org/html.charters/manet-charter.html.
In this approach, some means of establishing routes via the path of relay devices is required to reach the out-of-range devices. Given the differences between fixed and mobile networks, conventional routing methods, which are suitable for fixed networks, are unsuitable for routing through relay devices.